bahua dot com

Happy September, folks. I've been quite busy in the last few days. Since the announcement that mp3 decoders(players, like winamp) are no longer available to be provided without a fee, payable to the Thomson Multimedia Group. Hence, mp3's are no longer free. Soon after the announcement was made quite public across the internet, some time last week, this open letter surfaced on the webpage of the OGG-Vorbis project. Since I saw the original announcement, I've been busy converting my mp3's to ogg format. So, don't be freaked out if you go searching for mp3's on my site, and see a strange new format there. Go ahead, download it, and enjoy a free file format. Winamp has supported the playback of ogg files by default for some time now. So, for most people, the transition from a proprietary world to a free one should be transparent. I went to Boulevard Brewery again this weekend. I was informed by the Brewmaster, upon his knowledge that it was my fifth visit to the brewery, that I am welcome as often as I wish. This could be dangerous. The Brookside Irish Festival is this weekend, as well, and I will be in attendance tonight, to see a band that comes with high recommendation. I shall enjoy it, along with &#36;3 Boulevard pulls.

It must be Labor Day. It's so quiet tonight, you could hear a pin drop, and this room's carpeted. Only tonight, tomorrow night, and part of the night after, before my trip. I sure hope I can go. A colleague told me tonight that under threat of being fired, the majority of the striking flight attendants will not attempt the walkouts they are threatening, through their strongarm friends, the AFA. In other news, I think I'm going to try to install BeOS on the new laptop, when it comes. We'll see how compatble it is.

Well, I was pretty starved for more detailed information on the labor situation at Midwest Express. Then, a thought occurred to me. What news body would have more, and more objective information than the paper in Milwaukee, ME's headquarter city? I was searching for information on the airline's website, and that of the union. Both parties' stories contrast rather obviously, as one might expect. Luckliy, I got the scoop at the webpage of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Rapture. I'm still worried about the possibility of making it to Boston tomorrow, but not as much as I was. On a completely unrelated note, I have to reinstall the OS on this machine. I got a little too liberal with the tinkering, and I got my greasy fingers all over my C library. The machine now suffers from an identity crisis, along with not being able to allow me to perform basic functions, like compiling, or changing users. This doesn't sour me on Gentoo Linux, in the least, however. When messing with a computer's C library, any computer can be wrecked. I will attempt a reinstall, with a one-boot system. My plan, should all the stars align correctly, will be to install the OS, reboot with the new kernel, and reboot again only to move out of my apartment, or to react to a power outage. Cheers.

If you have found your way to this site to find it filled with outdated information, be not troubled, for it is because I had lots of fun and self-inflicted troubles with the computer I previously had it running on. So, so make amends, I am reinstalling the operating system for the previous machine. One drawback, that consequently accounts for why I like Gentoo is that when you install, it compiles EVERYTHING specifically for your system. With C-libraries, compilers, other libraries, and something like 150 software packages for a base system configuration, installation takes a long long time. The upside, however, is that the machine, having had every piece of software it runs compiled specifically for it, is staggeringly fast. That's why I've been away. I have suddenly found my way to Beantown, known to people who don't live within an eight-mile radius as Boston, where I am visiting with Carl, a friend I picked up in College. The city is beautiful, and the behavior of the weather is as perfect as can be. We expect highs in the mid seventies all weekend, and sunny, or partly cloudly skies. I found out today that my brother will be moving in, and his company(and rent money) will be very welcome.

I have nothing momentous to say today. Look at CNN or Fox for "One year later" reports. I'm sure they have plenty for you to ogle over. I'm just sad about how remarkably unamerican our country has striven to become since that morning. In happier news, I completed my account of my trip to Boston. Check it out here.

My brother is officially moved in, and has turned the apartment I labored to clean for his arrival into what can only be described as the sordid aftermath of a luggage bomb. He wheeled into town on Saturday afternoon, and I greeted him at the door with a beer, a smile, and a "welcome home!" Before we began the arduous process of bringing his eight things up from the car, we watched the end of the Notre Dame - Michigan game. It was an amazing finish, and an encouraging portent of the coming dual occupancy that will ensue. Joel moved out of his 8th floor apartment, and bequeathed to me an office desk and a bed. These were the first two big-ticket items on Brian's "I have to drop lots of cash for this" list. He loves the desk, and the bed, is very excited that he does have to 1) use the kitchen table for his computer, and 2) doesn't have to sleep on the couch/floor until he can afford a 1) desk and a 2) bed. So far, so good. I just hope he gets paid soon.

Brian has had his first day at work, and the sobering reality occured to me today that even though we live together, we will quite literally never see each other awake except for two hours a day, when our shifts overlap at work, and on weekends. We are currently crowded into my apartment that had once seemed spacious, and now only seems tight and inadequate. To remedy this, we have told the management that we would like to move to the big two-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor. It's much bigger, has two bedrooms, and a full bathroom for each bedroom. All of this will run us each an extra &#36;55 a month. One thing I don't particularly like about it is that it's on a floor that's high enough that we'd have to take the elevator. But, maybe not. I wouldn't mind getting a little more exercise, and I could certainly stand it.

Good Strong Bad email this week, along with another one of my favorite updates to the web, Herbert. A word of warning, though. Herbert Kornfeld does a very poor job at checking the colour of his language. In addition, I'd like to welcome two new additions to the datacenter at home: vinson(named for Vinson Massif, the highest point in Antarctica) and erebor(named for the fictional "Lonely Mountain" in Tolkien's world of Arda). May they serve well. Now that I have a rooommate, and one whose interests mildly intersect my own, at that, I would like to plan some trips to the southern half of Missouri, which I have heard to be a lovely place to visit. I hope to find out.

I am getting rid of two machines from my apartment. Elbrus and Fuji have served me well, but their places on my network, and in my floor space have caused me to doubt their overall utility. Alas, I have decided to give them away, to folks with no computer of their own. Both are hard working, and will serve well. The recipients will receive them in the coming days, and I will take part in what is often referred to as a "win-win" situation. It feels good to be helpful. Brian, Joel, and Susie went with me to Boulevard Brewery yet again, and I still am not tired of it. Each time I go(I think I'm up to six trips now) I get even more of a sense of pride in the little gem that Kansas City has in Boulevard Beer. Cheers.

Google just continues to amaze me. The world's greatest search engine site is now indexing news, with a delay of 15 minutes. I was thinking, for a while, that if I searched Google, I would be looking at web content from six weeks ago. Now, the delay has gone down to 15 minutes. What's next? Only the folks at Google know, I guess. Keep on chooglin, Google.

Oktoberfest is this weekend, and I plan on getting woozy, umppa'ing all over the place, swaying back and forth, and dropping a good deal of my freshly deposited paycheck. it'll be Brian's first outdoor festival in KC. I have really enjoyed the festivals I've attended since I've been here, so I expect he'll have a good time, too. As well, we're moving this weekend, and we'll be quite busy keeping up with that, and the rock-solid monument of dependability that is bahua.com will be down for hopefully a very short time, as we move equipment, and time the new internet connection. I'd knock on wood, but my workplace doesn't have any.

I completely missed Oktoberfest, as I was busy with moving, all weekend. I made it to a quick outing to the Newsroom with Brian, but the majority of the weekend's activities were devoted to moving from our one-bedroom place in 307, up to the big two-bedroom apartment in 618. I even found that I don't need to hook the laptop, the computer we keep in the living room, plugged into our network. Using its wireless capabilities, it's able to use the wireless network of the Foreign Language Academy, across the street, so I can sit and browse the web, shell into my server, read email, etc, without having any wires in my laptop. The new place, while still quite a mess, is wonderful. It's just huge. Check it out here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.